I was actually upvoting everyone because it let me.
This is common. I had no idea about it either and was just told "votes have value" I had 15SP from Steemit... no they didn't. Also back then, there were far fewer tools to see what was going on. I remember getting the slider at 500SP and didn't know it was a thing at all, just thought it was a UI upgrade.
So having an explanation on the how-tos is vital. Most people on the platform don't even know how it really works. A little bit, but, not everything.
I don't know it all in this area as once it gets to the algorithms, I get lost as math is not my strong point. =)